That Time You Stole Someone’s Shopping Cart
by Jin Cordaro
With their shopping list in the seat,
and a flower doodled in the corner – a sign
not a curse or a prayer, a devotion,
a singular language
to nourish and be nourished.
Familiar words, combined in a cipher,
you can only translate every third word –
paprika followed by shallots means
to put effort or caring.
Cranberries combined with pecans
and butternut squash means
to sustain, keep well.
What would this taste like?
This list a thin opaque crepe filled with
the soft, oozing breadth of someone’s attention
and time. You slip it into your jacket
keep your hand on your pocket as
you walk the store. Rush home
to unfold it, imagine it still warm,
slightly browned on a skillet,
sweet and bready with love.
You chew it slowly –
the only piece of food
to be found.
What are your poetic interests? What calls you to write? Why poetry?
I am called towards poetry which captures a human truth, and that can transform the personal into the universal – poetry which values the handling of the content over the content itself by finding a playful approach to human truth. And conversely, I am called towards poetry that does not singularly rely on startling imagery and language alone. What calls me to write is my obsession with trying to find an understanding of our existence: battling our own nature, repeating behavior, why we are who we are, if we can ever find a way to change, how we might get beyond what is dealt to us or what we have chosen by error. Poetry allows us to explore these questions as a group, whether it reaches an answer or not.
You have a new book out! Tell us about A Map for Exciting the Body.
I often find myself cringing when asked this question because I feel that it’s important for each reader to approach ANY piece of writing with their own interpretations, that is not already formed or even slightly impacted by the author’s description of their own work. A huge part of the joy in literature is the room that each reader can find for themselves in it. If I provide a description of my work, it closes the space. Alternatively, anyone even remotely interested in reading my book, can read the blurbs on the back from Naomi Shihab Nye, Faith Shearin, and Chad Sweeney, which contain references or snippets from the book without giving an interpretation.
In your poems, you often have speakers or characters inhabit metaphors in surreal ways. What are your strategies for turning the all possible black page into poetry?
I strongly believe that poetry lies in the everyday, so that it requires regular writing to allow the creative part of the brain to translate the everyday - an encounter with a stranger while getting coffee, things we realize while cruising down I-195, something startling or profound we hear on the radio or on a podcast – into poetry. So the stranger becomes connected to an animal you saw on I-195, and an interview with Ross Gay on NPR becomes a letter in reply, which did ultimately become the poem “Dear Ross Gay: About Your Book on Finding Delight” in my book. I believe that the brain is constantly trying to make sense of things in our world, and trying to connect them, and it’s just a matter of giving it a regular time and place to be heard.
In many of the poems in A Map for Exiting the Body, you extend the body into a town or a road where the speaker engages in discovery/rediscovery. How did this theme begin in your writing? Or when did it show up?
The metaphor of the town with roads emerged when I began writing the poem “Sometimes In the Country of Ourselves”, which is the opening poem in my book. I often think of examining the past as getting lost in an ironically familiar place. Sometimes we keep driving through the same place, and we recognize the landmarks. I think it’s a very human behavior to ruminate over things that have happened – why did it happen, what would we have done differently, how will we decide to handle it going forward? And oftentimes literature is the vehicle for examining the past – however it’s a way to ruminate more playfully (and again, I don’t mean this as “lighthearted” but rather through metaphors, personification, etc.) in the same way that the brain tries to make sense of our day by dreaming.
How does caregiving and motherhood affect or influence your writing practice?
This question is enormously difficult for me, because this topic is complicated by my own feelings toward the need to respect my children’s privacy and my love for them. Because my writing often examines the darker, heavier side of things, I hesitate to bring cynicism to something I cherish. If you can experience something joyful, or hopeful, or grateful, why change that experience with a darker view? And likewise, I find that when I try to write about the joy my children bring me, it feels cliché to me. I did include in my book one darker poem about parenting (“How to Divide One Whole You”) as well as one lighter one (“My Life In a Purse”). I would like to write more lighter work about parenting, but for now have settled on a balance.
How can readers buy your book, read your poems, and keep up with your poetic journey?
A Map For Exiting The Body is available on www.amazon.com, www.b&n.com, or directly through the publisher at www.terrapinbooks.com. You can also check my website, www.jincordaro.com for updates and links to journals where I’ll have new poems published that you can sample, as well as places where I’ll be reading.
Jin Cordaro is the author of a debut collection of poetry titled A Map For Exiting The Body. Her work has been featured on the podcast The Slowdown, which is produced by American Public Media, and has appeared in The Sun, Painted Bride Quarterly, Faultline, Bacopa Literary Review, A Smartish Pace, Sugar House Review, Cider Press Review, and the Laurel Review among others.
John Wojtowicz grew up working on his family’s azalea and rhododendron nursery in the backwoods of what Ginsberg dubbed “nowhere Zen New Jersey.” Currently, he works as a licensed clinical social worker and adjunct professor. He has been featured on Rowan University’s Writer’s Roundtable on 89.7 WGLS-FM and several of his poems were chosen to be exhibited in Princeton University's 2021 Unique Minds: Creative Voices art show at the Lewis Center for the Arts. He has been nominated 3x for a Pushcart Prize and serves as the Local Lyrics contributor for The Mad Poets Society Blog. His debut chapbook Roadside Oddities: A Poetic Guide to American Oddities was released in early 2022 and can be purchased at www.johnwojtowicz.com. He recently published No Lightsabers in the Kitchen. John lives with his wife and two children in Upper Deerfield, NJ.
